Why Spanish co-productions are growing in popularity

International co-productions are proving popular with both Spanish and overseas filmmakers - buoyed by the fact they are looked on favourably by Spain’s public funding schemes when it comes to allocating investment.

“We offer reliable partnerships,” says LaCima Producciones’ Ricard Sales, who co-produced last year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival best film winner Afternoons Of Solitude and is participating in the Spanish Producers Spotlight at EFM. “LaCima has managed to get all the financing support we have ever applied for. If we fall in love with a project, we carry it through.”

According to national film body ICAA, the number of international co-productions is on an upward trajectory: 87 in 2024 compared with 77 in 2023, 38 in 2020 and 51 in pre-pandemic 2019.

For Spanish producers, international co-production allows access to funding initiatives in other countries, while also increasing the chances of distribution abroad and a festival presence. The majority of bilateral co-­productions saw Spanish companies team up with counterparts in France. Arcadia Motion Pictures worked with France’s Noodles and Les Films du Worso on Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams, and joined forces with co-producer Caballo Films and France’s Le Pacte on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts. The titles premiered at Cannes in 2023 and 2022 respectively.

“These films were a natural fit with France,” says Arcadia executive producer Sandra Tapia. “The Beasts for creative reasons and because the main characters were French. It was released first in France and was a box-office success in both countries [grossing $2.1m/€2m in France and $3.4m/€3.3m in Spain, making it the eighth-biggest hit in Spain in 2023]. For Robot Dreams, it was France’s financial muscle and the prospect of [screening in France’s] Annecy and Cannes festivals.”

Another project with French participation is Nanouk Films’ Men And Days, selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market. The directing debut of Alcarràs co-writer Arnau Vilaro is produced by Nanouk, Lluis Miñarro and France’s Local Films.

The goal at EFM is to “look for an international sales agent and a possible co-production with a third country, like Germany, that helps us round up the financing”, says Nanouk producer Ventura Durall.

World view

Buenapinta Media producer Marisa Fernandez Armenteros, whose credits include Maite Alberdi’s Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary The Mole Agent and Isabel Coixet’s Un Amor in 2023, says she is only developing international co-productions. One is Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s Sundays, a drama about the tensions between a young girl and her family. Produced with Movistar Plus+, Encanta Films, Sayaka Producciones, Think Studio and Colosé Producciones, it also has Le Pacte as a French partner and will start shooting soon in the Basque Country.

Buenapinta Media has also teamed up with France’s Les Valseurs and Tournellovision for Sleepless City by Spanish director Guillermo Garcia Lopez, in co-production with Spain’s Sintagma, Encanta Films and BTeam Pictures. It is now in post.

“I will always feel more comfortable with European co-producers,” says producer Fernandez Armenteros of Buenapinta. “We have a common framework so the different administrations understand each other and we all work in euros.

“With Latin America, there’s the advantage of the common language, but the challenge is that some countries have fluctuating economies. Luckily, progress is being made with bilateral agreements to adapt the rules, like the new one between Spain and Uruguay where it’s no longer a requirement to have 20% participation from Uruguay.” Buenapinta is working with a Uruguayan partner on Victor Garcia Leon’s Altas Capacidades, now in pre-production and being set up as a 90% Spanish and 10% Uruguayan co-production.

Belgium and Italy are also increasingly attractive to Spanish producers. “Five or six years ago, there were very few co-productions with Italy,” says Arcadia’s Tapia, “but they set up a minority co-production fund that has encouraged co-operation.”

Carlos Marques-Marcet’s They Will Be Dust, which was the Platform winner at Toronto in 2024, and Alcarràs both benefited from the fund, which has an annual budget of $6.2m (€6m).

As for the UK, there is cautious optimism about the impact of the UK Independent Film Tax Credit, giving low-budget films an enhanced tax credit of 40%. “It is good to see new bridges are being built [with the UK],” says Fernandez Armenteros. “But costs [to shoot there] are still very high.”

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